


Roseali Week 2017

by Vanui



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: F/F, Roseali Week 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2020-05-12 08:59:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19225912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanui/pseuds/Vanui
Summary: Collection of fics from Roseali Week 2017.





	1. Day 1 - Honor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set immediately after the DLC.

They’re almost halfway back to Lastonbell when the sun is low enough in the sky that trying to see in the darkness of Volgran Forest is starting to strain her eyes. The wide brim of her ridiculous hat also is not helping her sight in the slightest, but she’d rather suffer wearing it than risk carrying it and dropping it if they get attacked.

Really, this entire outfit… Did Rose put her in it just for her own amusement?

“Phew, I’m beat!” Rose suddenly says, stretching her arms above her head and leaning back with a satisfied groan. Alisha is impressed that Rose manages to do that while walking and not fall over. She really shouldn’t be all that surprised though, considering Rose has had plenty of chances to demonstrate her balance and flexibility during their journey to Camlann. “Though I guess I’m probably not as sore as you, Alisha.”

She blinks in confusion at that. “What do you mean?” she asks, looking over herself as if the answer would somehow be visible on her body. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary except for a few tears here and there in the fabric, a detail that certainly took away from the regal look of the fancy outfit, but certainly no indication of any soreness on her part.

Rose sighs in exaggerated exasperation and gestures toward her legs. “I know those boots don’t weigh nearly as much as your regular armor, but I’ve put them on before and they are killer on your feet.”

She blinks again. “Now that you mention it…” The soles of her feet do ache more than usual, but she had been so focused on trying to see that she hadn’t noticed. “Well, we’re almost there, so it’s nothing to worry about.”

Rose abruptly ceases walking after that. Alisha doesn’t even notice that she does so until she takes a few more steps forward and hears a deafening lack of crunching leaves and soft footfalls beside her. Turning to squint at Rose’s still form, she calls out, “Rose?”

Instead of answering, however, Rose tilts her head at her as if in thought. Then in the moonlight that filters through the canopy of trees, Alisha watches her lips curl into a smirk. Or a grin. Or… something. It’s really hard to tell.

“Hey, Princess,” she finally says, taking a step toward her. Except much to her surprise, that step turns into a kneel, and then Rose has one hand extended upwards while the other folds behind her back. “Allow me the honor of carrying you back to your lodgings, your Highness.”

Alisha’s first response is a blank stare. Then as soon as she remembers she needs to blink, her face heats up and her hands flail in front of her frantically. “W-W-What?!” she squeaks, beyond confused and at a complete loss for words.

As quick as she had gone down, Rose stands up and grabs one of her flailing hands, holding it still while she beams at her. “It’s the least I can do for stuffing you into that outfit,” she explains. “Relax, will ya?”

“I-I…” A part of her desperately wants to shake Rose off, but another part of her kind of wishes there wasn’t a glove shielding the skin of her hand right now. “I am perfectly capable of walking by myself!”

“I know you are, but that’s not the point.” And, well, Rose is right, but still, she really doesn’t think this is necessary, and she tries to tell her as much, but Rose waves her off.

“I put you in that outfit, so the honorable thing to do is make sure you don’t get any more blisters because of it, yeah?”

She sputters, but Rose doesn’t give her a chance to respond. In one swift motion, her feet are swept out from underneath and she lands, yelping, into a pair of surprisingly steady arms.

Even as she begins to protest, all Rose says in response is, “Aren’t knights all about honor? Just let me do it.”

After that, all Alisha does is pull the brim of that ridiculous hat over her face and hope it shields her reddening cheeks from Rose’s vision. She’s sure if she struggles, Rose will just drop her and leave her there, and well, this is kind of nice in its own way if she’s being honest with herself.

“Fine then…” she mutters, trying not to concentrate on the warmth and smells coming from Rose this close up. “Please at least let me down before we go through the gates?”

“Psh, nope! All the way until the room in the inn or bust!”

“Rose! Don’t you dare!”

“Nope! Gotta take you back right where you left all your clothes so you can change back. Besides, nobody will be awake by the time we get back.”

“There are always people drinking at the inn at night! Rose!”

“Oh… I guess so huh. Oh well. Too bad!”

Raising the brim of her hat, Alisha’s about to give her a piece of her mind when she catches the bright smile and light blush covering Rose’s cheeks, visible even in this darkness, and she finds her irritation fading fast, quickly being replaced by an uneasy sense of embarrassment that she doesn’t quite understand.

“…Why are you like this? You idiot,” she mutters softly, but not softly enough.

“Is that really how you thank somebody who’s helping you out?” Rose quips back, her lips twitching into a smirk.

“This is all your doing in the first place!” Alisha shoots heatedly back.

As the pair walk off down the path bickering and bantering, they completely fail to notice the presence of two individuals who had left Rose’s body at the beginning of the exchange and stood, ignored, off to the side. The shorter one twirls the umbrella on her shoulder and sighs while she stares at the pair with dead, unamused eyes. “Honestly? I thought she was going to drop her. I wish she did.”

“Edna!” Lailah gasps. She genuinely looks shocked at Edna’s frosty reaction, but really, she should be used to such a reaction by now.

“What? It would have been funny. And not gross. Because this was gross.” She stops twirling her umbrella. “Or they could have both fallen over. That would’ve been better.”

“Really? I thought the whole exchange was quite sweet. Oh, to be young again!” Lailah croons, clapping her hands together and leaning her cheek into them. “Do you think we should leave them alone tonight?”

Edna just squints at her with a look of utter disgust on her face, scoffs, and walks away, trailing after the pair.

“Hm? Edna? Oh! Edna, wait for me!”


	2. Day 2 - Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set after canon. They’re dating already.

Like every other important conversation they have, they have it in the middle of battle.

The whole thing starts like this: the hellions they’re fighting aren’t particularly tough, but there are a lot of them, and the sheer numbers are almost overwhelming. She and Lailah are armatized and throwing flames everywhere, Mikleo is trying to keep everybody healed up, and Edna is shielding her and Lailah from attacks in the rear. Zaveid’s somewhere in the crowd of hellions trying to figure out where they’re all spawning from, but there’s no way any of them can see him from where they stand. They swarmed around his body as soon as he went in, and the only indication that he’s still alive are his yells and the occasional arte that blows a few of them up into the air.

It’s not even like there’s that much malevolence in the air. Well, okay, that’s not necessarily true, but she feels like her judgment for what’s a lot of malevolence has been skewed ever since fighting the Lord of Calamity himself. In any case, the hellions themselves are definitely weak, going down with one or two hits each, but the problem is that they don’t stop coming. Rose has gotten powerful since she first started her role as the Shepherd, but even she can only hit so many things at once.

Panting, she jumps back from the horde with a big swipe of her sword and wipes a bit of dried blood off her cheek. “God, it’s like they’re breeding in the back and popping out kids left and right,” she complains, jumping back in and purifying four or five with one swing. Unfortunately, another handful replaces them immediately after and force her on the defensive. “Seriously? It’s like one big nasty family over here.”

“You’re not far off, actually,” Zaveid shouts, appearing in front of her and skidding to a halt. He swings his weapon around and eliminates another handful, his hair flying wildly around his body and revealing a few injuries on his shirtless torso.

“I’m not?” Rose asks, mouth contorting into disgust at the mental image of hellions actually breeding. “Oh that’s gross.”

“Zaveid!” Mikleo calls out. In a second, the wind seraph’s body is encased in a flash of white light, and the shallow cuts and bruises are gone.

“Thanks, Mikky boy!” he grins back at the water seraph. Ignoring the other’s protests at the nickname, he turns to Rose and Lailah’s armatized form and jerks his thumb at the crowd of hellions. “Turns out the source are two hellions in the back doing some weird sort of fusion thing. I tried to get close but a whole bunch of these small fry swarmed me.”

“How pleasant,” she hears Edna comment.

“Well, at least we know what to do now,” Rose grins. She separates from Lailah who immediately brings up a whole bunch of paper and incinerates it in the faces of a few approaching hellions. Rose herself sidesteps another group of hellions and cleaves them through cleanly in two. Nodding at her friends, she twirls her knives in her hands and bounces on the balls of her feet. “Everybody ready?”

Everybody nods back at her. Zaveid, however, also decides to shout, “We’ll show ‘em who the superior family is!”

Everybody collectively pauses their movement and turns to stare at him. Even the hellions also seem to cease attacking at the declaration, up until a new presence breaks into the clearing and turns all heads their way. Rose doesn’t even have time to blink before a familiar spear is piercing through the thick horde of hellions, and the owner of said spear charges right into the fray, yelling, “It’s over! This is my time! Light Blast!”

A good portion of the hellions vanish into nothingness as the spear cuts through them all in rapid thrusts, and once the dust from the mystic arte clears, the form of the Hyland royal crest stares Rose down, clear as day on the back of one notable presence. Her mouth falls open. “A… Alisha?!” she squawks out.

She’s so shocked that she half expects the person to turn around and be somebody else, but no, those green eyes and that bright smile can only belong to one person that she knows. “Hello Rose,” Alisha inclines her head, hefting her spear up. She looks strong and healthy as ever, no trace of malevolence on her person, and Rose does her best to concentrate on that fact and not on the fact that her heart is beating heavily inside her chest at the mere sight of her girlfriend.

“Whoa, don’t I get a hello from the cute babe too?” Zaveid cuts in, serving as a reminder to Rose that this is not the time to be distracted.

“Oh, excuse me. I didn’t mean to be rude. Hello, Zaveid,” Alisha greets. “Hello to you as well, Lailah. Mikleo too! And Edna of course. Hello to both of you.”

“Alisha, what a pleasant surprise!” Lailah beams back at her, clapping her hands together. Mikleo agrees, and Edna kind of hums in agreement as well. Zaveid’s about to open his mouth and say something else when Mikleo thankfully cuts him off.

“Zaveid, can we save it for later?” Mikleo sighs. He blasts an approaching hellion with a gush of water and eliminates it. “We should really take care of this first.”

“Heh, alright. That’s our little bro for you! Always on top of things!” The wind seraph leaps forward and starts blasting at the hellions once more. “I’ll lead you right to the source, boss.”

Rose pries her eyes away from Alisha long enough to nod back at him and follow his lead. “Alright, then lead the way. You coming, princess?”

“Of course!” Alisha salutes and charges right after. “This is an awful lot of hellions though. What happened?”

As Rose begins to explain the situation to the newcomer, Mikleo trails after Lailah and Edna, his expression bewildered as he goes, “Did he just call me 'little bro’?”

“Oh, boy. Here we go,” Edna deadpans.

“It’s quite accurate though, isn’t it?” Lailah excitedly begins, even as she wields her flames with vicious force. The hellions shy away from the flames, almost as if they’re terrified of the fire seraph. “Just like Zaveid said, I’d like to think we’re all one big family, and you certainly seem like the responsible little brother type.”

He flushes in response to that, unsure of whether or not it’s a compliment. He decides to take it as one. “If I’m the little brother, then the only one here smaller than me should be the youngest, right? So Edna would be our-”

“Don’t.”

“Ow! Hey, swing that thing at the hellions, not me!”

Edna lowers her umbrella, stares at him, then launches herself forward into the battle with one push of the earth and sails straight into a group of hellions. “I guess this makes Zaveid the uncle that none of us wanted to have around but still shows up to every family gathering uninvited and causes a scene,” she dryly says right next to the wind seraphim. She mercilessly crushes the hellions he’s fighting aside and clears a pathway by putting up two walls around the group. “Hurry and go, these walls won’t last.”

Cackling, Zaveid darts forward with a wicked grin. “I’m glad you think of me so fondly, you little squirt! Thanks for the help!”

“Call me little squirt one more time and I will drop these walls on top of you.”

“Please don’t! You’ll mess up my beautiful bangs,” he cracks back. Dashing past the safety of the walls, he finds the two humans of the group far ahead of them, back to back, methodically cutting their way steadily forward through the black crowd. The sight is as impressive as it is scary, and he’s almost tempted to just step back and let them handle the rest.

“Zaveid?” he hears, and Lailah steps next to him, her form shimmering after having just finished casting an arte. “What are you doing?”

“Why hello there, beautiful,” he winks. Her face remains impassive. Oh well, Lailah’s always been a tough customer, he remembers. “Just wondering which one of those two is the sister and which one is the sister in law.”

Lailah makes a noise that’s somewhere between a gasp of surprise and a small laugh. “Oh dear. I hope they didn’t hear that.”

By the way both of the humans in question stiffen up, however, it’s evident that they did. Alisha’s ears have even gone a little red. Instead of acknowledging the conversation though, the both of them firmly continue clearing out hellions and refuse to look back at the seraphim.

Lailah giggles a bit. “Considering they’re not married yet, why not just have both of them be the young sisters of the group?”

“Ugh, then wouldn’t that make the whole thing between them incest?” Edna speaks up from behind. The scandalized gasps of everybody save for Zaveid and Edna leaves a small smirk on the earth seraph’s face. “What? I’m not the one who declared the both of them to be related.”

Zaveid practically roars with laughter at that. Rose finally chooses this moment to stop the conversation from deteriorating any further, summoning Edna to her body with one shout of “Hephsin Yulind” and charging to where she can now see the abomination spewing out the hellions. “Alright, cut the comedy routine people. Focus and cover me, everybody!”

And that was the end of that.

Later, once everything is purified and they’re all settled around a campfire, Alisha explains that she’d been investigating attacks in the area when she received a report of the Shepherd fighting what appeared to be dust clouds by herself in the forest. She’d come running after that.

Rose pulls Alisha into her lap while she tells the story, much to Alisha’s embarrassment and Zaveid’s hooting, but the knight doesn’t make an effort to leave either. Once she finishes, Rose hugs her even closer and beckons the seraphim over, even telling Mikleo to “stop cooking for one second and come over, it’s important”.

“Okay, guys, listen,” she starts, staring into the eyes of each seraphim seriously. “I know we usually kind of joke around like that when we fight, but today you all went a little too far.”

Alisha makes a little sound of surprise at that and squirms in Rose’s lap to face her. “Wait, Rose, there’s really no need to admonish them for earlier. I must admit, I found the whole thing somewhat amusing as well, despite the embarrassment, so really, there’s no need to…” She trails off when she sees that familiar glint of mischief in Rose’s eyes, and a sense of uneasiness settles into the pit of her stomach. “…Rose, where are you going with this?”

Rose’s lips curl into a wide grin, the widest Alisha has ever seen on her face before. “I just wanted to say that you’re all wrong. I’m the one housing this family in my body, so I’m the head honcho of the house, got it?” she states as seriously as she can in tone, even though her facial expression cannot control the amount of amusement she currently feels. “So forget all that sister and sister in law stuff, and make sure you pay Mommy Alisha here the right amount of respect as well.”

…

Despite the punch Alisha gives her immediately afterward and the weeks following where none of the seraphim will stop calling her “Daddy”, Rose believes it was all worth it just to see Alisha turn a shade of tomato that she hadn’t thought was possible up until that magical moment.


	3. Day 3 - Mask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set after canon. Alisha knows she’s an assassin, which I cannot recall if she actually learns or not in the game.

The looks that Lailah and Mikleo give her aren’t undeserved, but she can’t bring herself to heed their cautionary words of advice. She’s never done so before, and she won’t start now. She doesn’t think she ever will either, because she wants this too badly to give in to their concerned gazes.

That’s the whole issue though, isn’t it, she muses wryly to herself. The fact that she has no self control when it comes to this, to her. To whatever she’s seeking from the princess.

“Just keep a lookout outside, okay?” she tells them, and with much reluctance they agree but not before staring her down one last time.

It helps that she’s wearing her mask, even though she knows they know what she’s feeling without seeing her face. They’ve been with her too long to not know, but that doesn’t stop her from keeping the mask on. The cool metal touching her face is a safety net of sorts, an object serving a purpose beyond simply hiding her identity, and honestly, the fact that it helps her with the assassination business is merely a plus and not the other way around.

When the mask is off, she is Rose, the leader of the Sparrowfeathers to the masses and the Shepherd to a select few. When the mask is on, she is a servant of the defenseless and the wronged, a being without a name. She feels powerful in the anonymity, of being able to slip into the shadows and vanish without a trace, of showing nothing but the dark leather of her Scattered Bones garb and the glint of her eyes through the slits of her mask.

This false sense of power is the only reason why she is able to muster the courage to climb through a familiar window of the Diphda estate tonight.

Stepping in and closing the window behind herself, she soundlessly stalks her way forward in the dark, confident in her steps despite the near complete lack of light in the room. Even the moon and the stars have abandoned her today, although that worked to her advantage earlier while she completed her job.

Her foot slips at the thought of her job. Tumbling suddenly forward, she catches herself on the edge of the nearby bed and avoids any loud noises, but the impact of her weight sends the bed’s occupant scrambling awake. By the time she looks up, there’s a knife at her throat, and she stares wide eyed at the steady hand poised to strike, though she knows the other person would only knock her out with the weapon.

Neither of them move for what seems like hours, before eventually the knife lowers and the bed’s occupant sits back in confusion. “Rose?” Alisha asks, putting the knife aside on the bedside table. “Is that you?”

She swallows thickly, nervous, and pushes herself off the bed slowly. “The one and only,” comes her attempt at seeming normal and at ease, but the words only come off hollow and forced.

The princess is barely visible in the lack of lighting, but Rose can see enough of her form to feel nervous. Alisha Diphda may be known to the masses as beautiful with her hair up, but Rose is the only one with the privilege to see her beautiful locks flowing freely down her shoulders, slightly bedraggled from her sudden awakening but no less alluring. The sight should be comforting, but the worry she can see in the furrows of Alisha’s brow only makes her sick to her stomach.

Coming here was a mistake, she realizes.

“I just… I needed to let you know that… Well, tomorrow is going to be a pretty awful day for politics is all,” she tries explaining as vaguely as possible, ignoring the tightness forming in her chest. There’s a false energy in her voice, and it’s frustratingly obvious. When Alisha says nothing in response, only patiently wait for her to continue, does she force the rest out. “You know that one noble that’s been giving you a lot of problems lately? Yeah, I had to get rid of him.”

Understanding dawns in the princess’s eyes. “…I see. So people will think I ordered the assassination then.”

“Probably,” she nods stiffly. “So I thought I should warn you ahead of time,” she finishes with a half lie.

Hearing this, Alisha brings a hand up to her chin, adopting her typical thinking pose with such seriousness that Rose almost forgets that the princess is in her nightwear and sitting in her bed. “So who actually did pay for the job?” she finally asks.

She really doesn’t want to talk about this topic in any more detail, but if she doesn’t answer then Alisha will definitely pick up on her discomfort and start relentlessly questioning her further. Either way, she’s probably lost this battle before it’s begun.

A mistake, she thinks to herself again.

“One of the servants had a sister who tipped us off.” And the poor girl was almost hysterical by the time she finally wound up in front of the Scattered Bones, she remembers.

Alisha takes this information in and closes her eyes, lowering her head into her hand and shifting slightly beneath her sheets. Eventually, quietly, she murmurs, “The servant…‘had’ a sister?”

Shit. Rose nearly swears out loud. She hadn’t meant to let that slip. Her palms begin to sweat as she figures out how to answer this inquiry with enough information to satisfy the thorough princess and also allow her to leave this manor immediately afterward without raising suspicion.

The silence between them stretches as she scrambles for a solution, but finally the timer on princess’s suspicion meter runs out and Rose realizes she’s fighting a lost cause.

Alisha shifts closer to the edge of the bed, reaching out and taking one of the assassin’s gloved hands into her own bare ones. A strange sight if she ever saw one, Rose thinks, considering how it’s usually the opposite sensation of hand-on-glove that she feels.

“Rose…” she calls softly, and her sincere gaze pierces right into Rose’s gut. “Why don’t you sit down and take that off?”

Alisha is staring right at her mask, she realizes. Unconsciously, her shoulders stiffen up and her body jerks back, but the princess’s hold is firm, almost as if she had predicted such a response.

“I-I…” She winces when her voice cracks, leaving her even more vulnerable to Alisha’s scrutiny. This situation is spiraling further and further away from her control, and no amount of false bravery and metal plating can conceal her increasing panic. She should have listened to Mikleo and come in the morning once she’d calmed down, but it’s too little too late.

Regret does not suit her, she decides. Neither does the lump lodged in her throat preventing her from speaking.

“What happened?” comes the question she’s been dreading.

She says nothing, just breathes.

Alisha’s eyes fall for a moment, but when they regain focus, there’s a gentle determination bursting from within her green irises. “You don’t have to tell me about it now, but please, at least take the mask off and sit,” she tries entreating.

You’re not really giving me much of a choice, Rose wants to say, wants to joke about it and laugh it off, wants to shake off her hand and run. But then the princess is finally dragging her in and pulling her close, until her knees hit the edge of the bed and she sinks slightly into their cushioning.

“Oh, Rose…” Alisha whispers, then raises one hand gradually up. “Please…”

She flinches away from the princess’s reaching hand, covers the mask with her own hand in an effort to keep it in place.

It can’t come off. Not right now. Not when she’s supposed to be strong.

The seconds pass by, their gazes locked into place, neither willing to give up to the other, before the fingers gently slip off the metal of her mask, and she breathes a sigh of relief, of disappointment, of anticipation and of despair.

Then a warm hand reaches up underneath her mask and slides onto her cheek, and she knows she’s lost. She can’t help but lean into the comforting touch, and that’s all the permission Alisha needs before the hood is coming off her head and the mask is lifted off her face.

She’s so weak, she realizes. When it comes to this princess, she is neither the leader of the Sparrowfeathers nor the Shepherd, nor the defender of the defenseless. She is simply Rose, all other facets of her identity stripped away and leaving her naked to Alisha’s searching stare.

“It’s okay, Rose,” Alisha whispers without judgment, pressing her forehead against hers, and Rose closes her eyes and shakes in the warmth of her skin. “It’s alright.”

And she wants to tell her no, it’s not okay, that the things she saw today in that noble’s house, that what he did to his poor servants, she thinks about how close this man has been in contact with Alisha, how they’d been meeting in the same councilroom for days, how underneath his lying, conniving exterior there’s an even deeper layer of darkness, thinks about Alisha coming so close to his taint, Alisha lying where those servants are lying dead, disfigured, too late to save, she…

“I’m here for you.”

And she is, Rose tries to convince herself. The princess is alive, in her own bed, talking with an assassin and a Shepherd and a friend, safe and sound. But words aren’t enough for her.

Letting the last pieces of her mask fall away, she falls forward and wraps her arms around the princess’s warmth, holds her close and breaths in her familiar scent and listens to the steady beating of her heart. Alisha says nothing, doesn’t reject her, just returns the embrace and keeps her close too.

“…Yeah,” she eventually speaks, fingers gripping the back of Alisha’s nightwear and head burrowed in her shoulder. “…Thanks.”

She feels Alisha shake her head, then start trailing her fingers soothingly through Rose’s hair. The stress of the day begins falling away with each stroke of her head, and before long, she’s sound asleep in the princess’s arms.

“Thank you, Rose, for all the burdens that you carry for the rest of us,” she doesn’t get to hear, but the warmth of her companion is enough for tonight.


	4. Day 4 - Tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set post canon.

“Oh,” Rose says, catching her in her arms. “Wow. I mean, uh, are you… okay? Or are the decorations really that bad?”

She gives a watery laugh at that, sniffling between her breaths, and shakes her head, holding onto Rose tightly and taking in her familiar scent. “They’re pretty bad,” she admits, staring up at the garish assortment of balloons and streamers hanging off the entryway’s main staircase. Compared to the deep earthy color of the rest of the manor’s railings and floors, the decorations look a bit like a jungle of mismatched flowers sprouting from every corner.

“Oh.”

“But I love them,” she finishes, laughing again. Rose huffs in offense.

“You don’t need to humor me if they’re really that bad,” she grumbles, and when Alisha pulls away to peer at her expression, she finds Rose’s face contorted into a pout. The sight is adorable.

Poking at her lover’s cheek, Alisha blinks away her tears as best as she can and smiles when Rose glances over. “Really, I do like them. Thank you,” she says, and her smile grows wider when Rose begins to sport a light blush.

She honestly didn’t think the Shepherd would be back in time for her birthday, not that she blamed her for it of course. Rose had set off a few days earlier to deal with a rise in malevolence somewhere in Rolance, and so they’d said their goodbyes and promised to celebrate whenever Rose returned.

That’s why, despite the clashing colors decorating her entryway, she is genuinely moved at Rose’s efforts, because the sheer amount of decoration in the room combined with how tired Rose must be from traveling truly speaks volumes about exactly how much effort was involved. So she started crying.

(Although, if she’s being completely honest, a little bit of the reason she started crying is because the neon streamers hurt her eyes a bit. But Rose doesn’t need to know that.)

“I’m glad you liked them, but you didn’t have to cry over it,” Rose mumbles, rubbing the back of her neck and turning away. Despite the strange half smile, half frown she’s trying to hide, Alisha knows Rose is too embarrassed to admit she’s relieved. Her Shepherd really is too cute.

“I can’t help it. I truly am happy and thankful for your efforts.”

At this, Rose’s head perks up. “Yeah?” she turns back around, face lighting up.

“Besides, making me cry is just another daily occurrence for you, isn’t it?” she teases, and the look on Rose’s face afterward has her laughing so hard she’s in tears once again. “I’m sorry, Rose. I couldn’t resist.”

“Do a nice thing for a pretty girl and this is where it gets me,” she sniffs, glaring at the still crying and still laughing princess. She pulls away from their embrace and folds her arms over her chest.

“A pretty girl, am I? Well,” Alisha starts, grabbing Rose by the shoulders and leaning in close. “I appreciate the compliment,” she finishes and presses a quick kiss to her lips that leaves Rose blushing but smiling too.

“A-Anytime. Just for you, princess.”

“By the way,” she says nonchalantly, adjusting the bandana on Rose’s neck and smoothing it out. “You spelled ‘birthday’ wrong.” Finishing with the bandana, she points at the banner hanging against the back wall of the staircase, and Rose quirks an eyebrow and follows her hand. Her eyes immediately widen once she sees what’s written there.

“…Zaveid! Where the hell are you?” Rose starts shouting into the mansion, looking around left and right. From somewhere down the hall, probably near the kitchen if Alisha is hearing right, a loud laugh erupts and echoes. “I swear, if he’s eating the cake too…”

“You got me a cake?” she blinks, surprised. Rose snorts.

“It’s your birthday, of course I got you a cake. And a present, but that’s for later. Now come on, everybody else is waiting,” Rose beams, pulls her by the hand and drags her forward. “Oh, wait a second.” She stops, brings her hands up, and begins to wipe away the wetness still shining on Alisha’s cheeks. “There.”

Alisha feels like her cheeks are threatening to break from how much she’s been smiling in the past few minutes. Leaning forward, she kisses her again. “Thank you,” she says when she steps back.

Rose, coughing away the blush, just waves her off and continues dragging her to where she can now hear the seraphim talking amongst themselves. “Don’t thank me yet. Let’s see if you still have a cake to eat.”

She giggles and squeezes Rose’s hand in response. “Hey, Rose?”

“Hm?” Still walking, she looks over her shoulder and meets Alisha’s gaze.

“You know, 'Happy Babeday’ kind of has a nice ring to it.”

Rose’s steady steps falter for a second.

“…Don’t you dare say that to him. He’ll never stop using it.”

Grinning, Alisha decides she’s probably right. But now she knows what she’s doing for Rose’s birthday when it comes. For now, though, she prepares herself for what is surely going to be a rowdy, yet entertaining evening. After all, with Rose around, it’s never a dull day.

Especially when there’s alcohol involved. She hopes there’s no alcohol involved.

…

(There is alcohol involved. However, considering she wakes up the next morning feeling fairly well rested and curled up naked in the arms of her lover, she can forgive Rose this time.)


	5. Day 5 - Stay With Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set after canon at some point where nothing hurts and everything is great.

Rose, being Rose, does not regret many things in life because if she did, there would be no end to the amount of malevolence she’d be harboring by now. That being said, when the morning sun beams down upon her face and sears her eyelids into opening, the first thing she does is curse herself for leaving the curtains drawn last night.

She’d forgotten to close them in her rush to slip through the window and pounce on the waiting princess, wanting nothing more than to feel the warmth of her lover’s skin as fast as possible. Of course, once the pouncing started, it didn’t end until well after they were both exhausted and ready to pass out. So the curtains had been the last thing on her mind when she’d finally fallen asleep.

That was a mistake if she’d ever made one. She groans loudly into her pillow, turns her face into it, realizes she can’t breathe, then tries turning away from the sun and face the other side of the room.

It doesn’t work. The room is too bright.

“Rose,” she hears, but her mind is so sleep fogged that she registers her name being called, convinces herself she’s just imaging it, and snuggles into the sheets. The next thing she knows, she’s being shaken by the shoulder, and only when the shaking doesn’t stop does she wake up enough to swat at whoever is trying to so rudely rouse her back to the world of the living.

“Stoooooop,” she whines, pawing at the hands on her shoulder. “Let me… rest…”

She hears a sigh then, and while the other person’s guard is down, sneaks an eye open to peer at the person standing beside the bed. Who else could it be but Alisha, fully dressed in everything but her armor, standing tall and bright in the morning sun, her hair practically glowing in the sunlight and giving her the look of an ancient and powerful seraphim? She snorts at the thought.

“Rose?” the princess blinks, alarmed at the sudden sound. Before she has time to react, Rose grabs her by the hand and pulls, yanking her down onto the bed even as she yelps in surprise and tries to remain upright. She topples forward into Rose’s waiting arms, arms which snap the sheets around her as soon as she lands, effectively trapping her inside a cocoon of warmth. Squirming, the princess tries to move, but with the way Rose has her trapped, she has no way of escaping.

Grinning, Rose faces Alisha’s pout and pulls her closer. “There,” she mumbles, snuggling into the crook of the princess’s neck. “That’s better.”

She feels rather than hears Alisha’s tired but fond sigh tickle past her ear. “Rose, I have a meeting this morning,” she chastises softly, but even as she says this, her fingers come up and curl into the bare skin of Rose’s hip. Just a little more, Rose thinks, and Alisha will give in.

“Mmm, five more minutes. Just stay with me for five more minutes,” she breathes into the princess’s skin, running a hand lightly down where she knows is the sensitive part of Alisha’s back, and when she feels a slight tremor go through her princess’s body, she knows she’s won.

There’s no point sleeping when there’s this much sunlight filtering into the room, but there’s always other fun activities to do in bed besides sleep.

Needless to say, Princess Alisha Diphda does not make it to any meetings that day, much to her chagrin. Rose gets scolded for an hour at the end of the day when they’re finally both way too tired to keep going, but it’s all worth it, especially when the princess forgets to put on clothes before she goes off on her.

When they go to bed that night, Rose remembers to close the curtains this time. Not that it’ll stop her from attempting the same shenanigans tomorrow, of course, but at least this time she doesn’t have to be blinded every time she wants to take a look at Alisha’s naked body. She’ll have to figure out a different way to make her stay though, because Alisha’s not going to fall for the same thing two days in a row, and Rose would hate to be known as a one-trick pony.

But it won’t be too hard. Alisha wants to stay with her as much as she does with Alisha, after all, and Rose can’t ask for much more than that. She doesn’t need to either. This is more than enough for her.

Besides, how many other people can say they got Alisha Diphda out of doing work for a day?

And with that thought in mind, Rose falls asleep with a princess in her arms, her mind filled with plans for the coming morning.


	6. Day 6 - The Way She Moves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post canon. They’re not dating yet, but they also suck at flirting.

“Rose, you move kind of strangely,” Alisha says one day while they’re walking together to Marlind, sounding so casual about what she’s just said that Rose almost thinks they’re talking about the weather or something else instead.

The comment is so out of the blue that Rose actually freezes mid step and has to take a few seconds to blink and make sure she’s heard correctly before turning to Alisha and furrowing her eyebrows at the princess.

“…What?” she questions. “What?” she says again, scratching at the side of her head.

Alisha watches her reactions and laughs lightly behind her hand, shaking her head and walking past Rose’s stunned form. Her green eyes sparkle mischievously under the afternoon sun as she passes, and only when she continues walking down the path and makes it a good distance away does Rose realize she’s seriously about to be left behind.

“Hey, you can’t just say that and walk away,” Rose shouts, running after her. Quickly, she comes up next to the princess and finds that Alisha is staring at her thoughtfully, probably has been since she started running. The whole thing is making Rose feel slightly unnerved, so she asks again, “Okay, seriously, what are you doing?”

Alisha makes a sort of humming noise, resting her chin in her hand for a moment, before she responds, “Well, I wanted to make sure my observations were accurate one final time.”

“…Hah?”

“You tend to move almost noiselessly whenever you are around me,” Alisha states, dropping her hand and tilting her head. “Even when you run, your steps don’t make much noise at all. Your feet are very light and fast.”

Rose frowns at her and crosses her arms over her chest. “Uh, did you forget what I do for a living, Princess?” she reminds her incredulously. “Exactly what is so amazing about an assassin being silent, light and fast?”

Hearing this, the princess makes a displeased sort of noise and quickly shushes her companion. “Rose! We’re in the open!”

“Yeah, and nobody’s nearby,” Rose nonchalantly waves her off. “Trust me. No normal human gets past these senses.”

“…I suppose that brings me back to my original point,” Alisha sighs, relaxing once more. She still looks a bit upset at Rose’s nonchalance, but she moves on nonetheless. “Assassin you may be, silent and with honed senses, but you make an effort to be very noisy when you are around other people, especially when you are doing business as leader of the Sparrowfeathers.”

“Oh, that?” Rose makes a dismissive waving motion and crosses her hands behind her head. She’s smirking as she says, “You gotta be loud and proud to get noticed, and getting noticed means getting business. So of course I make noise when I’m doing Sparrowfeathers business.”

The princess shakes her head. “That’s not what I meant,” she declares, taking a second to glance at the ground. “When you walk amongst people, you almost force yourself to take heavier steps. Your gait is almost unnaturally firm, and you stand a little straighter.”

Rose blinks at her, slowly dropping her hands back down to her sides. She purses her lips in thought, then brings a hand up to the back of her neck and sighs. “Yeah,” she finally says and glances away, looking at something off in the distance.

“Yeah?” Alisha echoes, pressing her for an answer.

“Okay, you got me. I gotta actively try and take ‘normal’ steps around other people, otherwise I slip into sneaking around,” comes the answer, brisk and forced. Rose sighs again, running her fingers through the back of her head and flinging her hair up from behind. Her hands fall to her hips, and she looks down at the ground, unwilling to meet Alisha’s eyes. “Natural for me is being quiet. Helps to have that as your default response when you get into trouble during missions and such. Why bother asking anyways? Does my sneaking around bother the steadfast knight who faces her opponent head on?”

Realizing her mistake, Alisha softly gasps, hurriedly running forward and grabbing Rose’s arm. “I meant no harm by the question! I’m sorry to have made you uncomfortable,” she apologizes frantically. Rose tries to shake her head, brush it off, but Alisha will have none of it. Grabbing her gently by the chin, she tilts Rose’s head until their gazes meet. Rose doesn’t resist her touch. “Honestly, I figured something like that was the case, and I… well…” she trails off, losing her nerve as she stares at Rose’s blue eyes and suddenly feels her stomach flutter at their closeness.

Now confused, Rose stares at her, waiting silently. Alisha notes this, swallows thickly and continues.

“I just wanted to thank you, Rose. For being comfortable enough in my presence to let yourself act natural,” she tells her, pushing through her own discomfort and putting on a small smile. Clearly Rose hadn’t been expecting such a response, if the way her eyes widen is any indication. To her relief (and slight disappointment?), her friend pulls away from her touch and takes a couple steps back, her expression surprisingly blank of any emotion except surprise.

They stare at one another again, eyes locked in some sort of strange search, as if the words they need to say lie in the irises of the other girl. 

Then, in typical Rose fashion, Rose opens her mouth and blurts out, “It’s only fair, right? Considering how much you cry in front of me, I figure I should be allowed to relax in front of you too,” she grins, puffing her chest up with confidence. The whole thing is topped off with a wink, and Alisha’s mouth drops against her will.

Out of all the reactions she could have given, Alisha thinks. But she closes her slack jaw and shakes her head, donning a small smile again as she walks toward Rose’s confident pose. “I suppose you’re right,” she admits fondly, and her words knock Rose off balance. She finishes it off with a light punch to Rose’s shoulder that sends her waving her arms wildly to keep her balance.

“Whoah, hey!” Rose shouts.

“Jerk,” she sticks her tongue out.

“Why you little–”

Laughing, Alisha dodges out of Rose’s lunge and winks back at her. “Catch me if you can!” she giggles, and then takes off.

“Hah, who’s the one who just said I was light footed a second ago? I’ll get you in no time!” Rose retorts back, a smile of her own appearing on her lips. Really, this princess is just full of surprises, Rose thinks, but she wouldn’t have Alisha any other way.


End file.
